While co-working this week, 
Beth Goldfarb, from Cause Farm Creative, asked me, “How do you ask for a testimonial? Do you simply ask, 'Can I have a testimonial?' or do you qualify it and customize the question to get a useful response?
Can you tell I have an opinion on this? Beth and I talk about in this video. Thanks to the lovely Heather Parlato for videotaping us.
Thanks Getting: how to ask for a testimonial from Dyana Valentine on Vimeo.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- What do you want them to say? Go beyond “something nice about me.”
- How did your work influence their ability to do theirs?
- How do THEY measure the impact or value of your work?
- Go deep and specific to make it useful to your "marketing machine." Find out what is missing in the testimonial section of your website.
- What do YOU say about what you do or what results do you promise?
- What did you do for this specific client that proves your claim was true? Can you invite your client to speak specifically to that point?
- If you think that you had a particular impact on the way your client’s business changed due to your contribution, offer that up in the testimonial request.
A colleague said that she sometimes crafts testimonials or feedback for her clients to edit and customize. Do you ever write a testimonial FOR someone to endorse? I'd love to hear your feedback.
When you get the testimonial, you can always edit the language for brevity or clarity or ask follow up questions to beef it up if it came in as, "You're great, I highly recommend you." Also, don't forget to say thank you to your client for taking the time and energy to support your process!
BTW: Enjoy the holiday....and check out the Black Friday specials on MyDesignShop.com. Be sure to use the promo code "THANKS10" which is good through 11/27.
I just discovered that giving is a good way of getting a testimonial. I sent flowers to a long time client as they grew out of their basement office into a brand new (and bigger) office. And they immediately responded with a blog post thanking me publicly. http://www.k9designco.com/blog/2010/11/thank-you-to-a-wonderful-mentor/
So I am shameless plugging while hopefully also passing along a tip.
absolutely, Ilise. There really is nothing like sending out the love to get it back in triplicate. Colleen Wainwright, the communicatrix, speaks/writes about sharing the love the best ways in her online credo:
http://www.communicatrix.com/newsletter-archives/making-people-love-you-more-madly-september-2009
Pingback: Ask for the right kind of praise — Dyana Valentine
Dyana, this is such a great way for people to organize their thoughts about testimonials. There's so much more than "great to work with! responsive! fast!"
Off to go share this golden nugget
Also, something I do, when a client writes a warm & fuzzy thank you email, I copy & paste the part that I'd like as a testimonial and reply back saying Thank YOU, and would it be okay to use this portion of your note as a testimonial on our site, with your name and company listed like this .
I bet most people have tons of testimonials they didn't even recognize!
xoxo
Jodi